4chan invades Tea Party website

Spiked

A website run by the conservative Tea Party movement was overrun by the denizens of 4chan on Tuesday.

Website vulnerabilities on the official teaparty.org website allowed pranksters to divert surfers landing on the photo section of the site to smut and shock sites. It's unclear what website security shortcomings were exploited in that attack and whether these are now closed. Boing Boing has screenshots from the attack in a short article here (NSFW).

The assault coincides with ongoing DDoS attacks by members of 4chan against entertainment industry websites in protest against legal actions against torrent tracker website The Pirate Bay.

"Operation: Payback Is A Bitch" began over the weekend as an attack against Aiplex, an Indian firm that acts as a hired gun for Bollywood film studios, resorting to DDoS attacks on websites hosting BitTorrent trackers that fail to respond to takedown notices. The attacks moved on to assaults that flooded websites maintained by the MPAA and RIAA and, most recently, ACS:Law.

It's hard to imagine two groups of people more contrasting than fans of 4chan, the anarchic message board, and supporters of the Tea Party movement of "God-fearing" conservatives. So it's no surprise that the two groups have clashed in the past.

The Oregon Tea Party made the mistake of using the "We Are Legion" slogan of Anonymous, the anti-Scientology movement that spawned in 4chan, in its official materials this summer. In response, Anonymous hacked the Tea Party's Facebook page, posting flames and image macros, before the local branch of the dissident conservative movement promised to stop using the slogan. More on this culture clash in a story by The Escapisthere. ®